Farewell To A Cultural Icon
R.I.P.
I couldn’t believe the news as I watched it unfold Thursday, I mean who would have thought? I kept thinking to myself, “Not him, not now.” It was one of those unexpected, surreal moments that everyone will remember in history.
Record Store Day
I subscribe to Bob Lefsetz’s email mostly for the shits and giggles I get reading his constant critique and blasting of the current state of the music industry, at times he can be very insightful with his observations, but in one of last week’s emails he wrote:
“As for Record Store Day…How laughable is that. If you’re salivating over this, you’re living in 1990, and hoping we go back to 1970. Record stores are dead. As dead as your Apple II. Some will survive, as dealers in antiquities and tchotchkes, but essentially everyone will buy online.”
C-N-M
Capone and me "shooting myself in the foot"
I’ve been seeing some recent posts on Capone-N-Noreaga promoting the upcoming release of their third album, “Channel 10″, which leads me to this photo that I dug up from my archives. Back in March of 1999, while I was working for TRACE Magazine I got offered the opportunity to interview Capone for a Queensbridge-themed music issue. Mind you, I wasn’t originally hired as a writer, I handled ad sales and marketing, but with such a small staff I got the fringe benefit of being able to ‘wear different hats’ while I was there.
So It Begins…
Thinking back, it was last New Year’s Eve when I bumped into Jon Shapiro, random considering I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years and here he is in the madness that ensues on the streets of Manhattan just after midnight. Shipes said he’d been on his grind making moves such as bringing Sean Kingston to Epic Records and in the process leveraging an imprint deal for his label, Cinematic Music Group. He also mentioned that he was signing Devin The Dude to an indie label, Razor and Tie, which baffled me since (I thought to myself, “Wait, didn’t you just say you signed to Epic? and) I knew Devin had been on Rap-A-Lot for his entire career. We laughed about some buffoonery that took place the last time we saw each other, exchanged numbers and that was how 2008 began…